Apple’s Cue Seeks Overhaul of Maps Amid Duel With Google

Apply Inc. Senior Vice President Eddy Cue, who started his career at Apple in the company’s internal information-technology department, became a close confidant of Steve Jobs. Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc.’s Eddy Cue, who took
charge of map software last month, is racing to turn around the
troubled service, firing a senior manager and urging partners to
improve data amid an escalating rivalry with Google Inc.

Cue, 48, senior vice president overseeing Apple’s online
services, pushed out maps supervisor Richard Williamson in a
management shakeup soon after taking over the program, said
people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be named
because the information isn’t public. Cue is seeking advice from
outside map-technology experts and prodding maps provider TomTom
NV to fix landmark and navigation data it shares with Apple.

Apple is under pressure to remedy mapping software widely
faulted for unreliable landmark searches, routes that get users
lost and a lack of public-transit directions. Building
confidence in the tools is crucial as Google prepares its own
downloadable mapping application for the iPhone and iPad,
threatening to lure users and ad dollars away from Apple.

“Maps are a mission-critical application, and consumers
have to trust that what they are seeing is correct,” said Sarah
Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research. “Apple will have
to work really hard to re-earn that trust.”

The shares fell 1.8 percent to $574.24 at 9:34 a.m. in New
York. Through yesterday, the stock had advanced 44 percent this
year.

While flaws in Apple’s map program haven’t dented sales of
the iPhone 5, which was introduced in September, the
shortcomings were an unusual public misfire that forced Chief
Executive Officer Tim Cook to apologize to customers. The
bungled introduction of the new mapping features also
contributed to the ouster of mobile-software chief Scott
Forstall, whose departure was announced in October.

Cook’s Apology

Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment
on Cue’s moves. She referred to the statement Cook issued in
September that said the mapping software will improve as more
customers use it and more data can be gathered.

“We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has
caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make
maps better,” Cook said in the statement.

In removing Williamson, Cue wants to install a new
leadership team for the group, one person said. A replacement
for Williamson wasn’t immediately known. Attempts to reach
Williamson weren’t successful.

A team at Apple has been working to fix the mapping
mistakes, focusing first on some of the most glaring flaws, one
person said. The satellite imagery over the U.K. has been
improved and labels for popular U.S. landmarks such as the
Washington Monument have been corrected.

Removing Google

The new version of Apple’s iOS mobile software removed
Google’s maps app, which had been built into iOS since the
iPhone’s introduction in 2007, in favor of its own. Apple’s
program added new features such as turn-by-turn navigation and
fly-over views of landscapes. IOS software runs iPhones and
iPads, which compete with smartphones and tablets that run
Google’s Android operating system.

Apple, which also eliminated the preinstalled app for
Google’s YouTube video service, built the replacement map
program because it wanted to scale back its relationship with
Google, two people familiar with Apple’s development of maps
said in September.

The mapping missteps highlight Apple’s lack of experience
building and maintaining Internet services that need constant
upkeep. While Apple excels at designing hardware products like
the iPhone and iPad, Google has built its businesses around
services such as search, e-mail and mapping -- then selling
advertising around that, said Noah Elkin, an analyst at
researcher EMarketer Inc.

“It’s difficult to replicate the same level of experience
that Google has achieved over a long period of time essentially
overnight,” Elkin said.

‘Rare Stumble’

A critical mistake for Apple was saying before the mapping
product was released that it would be one of the best services
on the market, Elkin said.

“That was the expectation when it launched,” he said.
“It didn’t live up to that, and it was a rare stumble for
Apple.”

Williamson, who had worked at Apple for more than a decade,
was part of the group that built the software for the original
iPhone and is named on several of the smartphone’s patents. In
addition to Apple, he worked at NeXT Computer, the company
founded by Steve Jobs before he returned to lead Apple in 1997.

As part of the management overhaul last month, Cue -- who
oversees Apple’s iTunes, App Store and iCloud services -- was
also put in charge of maps and the Siri voice-recognition tool,
bringing all of the company’s online services under one group.

Cue’s Management

Cue’s role overseeing those sorts of services may help turn
around the mapping program, said Forrester’s Epps.

“That experience could be a good thing for Apple,” she
said.

This isn’t the first time Cue has taken on a troubled
product. Jobs had him supervise the MobileMe Internet-storage
service after a series of miscues, including a glitch that
prevented customers from accessing their e-mail. That service
was recently closed and replaced with iCloud.

Cue, who started his career at Apple in the company’s
internal information-technology department, became a close
confidant of Jobs. As head of iTunes, he spearheaded many of the
negotiations with music, television and movie companies. He’s
also leading the company’s effort to add more video content for
a potential new television product, people familiar with the
internal deliberations said earlier this year.